Professor Praveen Jha

Prof Praveen Jha is based at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, and has a PhD in Economics from this university.

A widely published academic, Prof Jha specialises in labour and development economics, land reform, poverty and public finance. His published work ranges from land reform in India and issues of equity to agricultural labour in India to the causes of poverty in developing countries.

One of this most recent works is a chapter titled Labour Conditions in Rural India: Reflections on Continuity and Change in a book titled Rural Wage Employment in Developing Countries: Theory, Evidence and Policy, edited by Carlos Oya and Nicola Pontara (Routledge, 2013).

Prof Jha is the Chairperson, Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies (CIS&LS) at Jawaharlal Nehru University. The major part of the working people in India is located in what is known as the ‘Informal Sector’, which includes agricultural labourers, non-agricultural labourers, peasants, fishermen and craftsmen.

He has also taught at St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi and at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie. He has been a Visiting Fellow at University of Bremen, Germany; Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, Tianjin, China, and Visiting Senior Research Economist at the International Labour Organisation, Geneva, Switzerland.